January 2026 Blog

December rolled into January and within ten hectic days we had winners, Christmas, New Year, snow, ice and a wolf moon. To be fair, this January didn’t feel as if it lasted an eternity like past Januarys. The winners steadily tallied up, which helped to keep morale high, even if the weather was often against us.

Super Moons and Snow

We woke up to snow deep enough that the tractor and snow plough were out before daylight clearing the driveway. Yet, the snow wasn’t bad enough to prevent the string from being exercised. I never felt the cold when working on the yard, because mucking out pumped the blood like a gym workout. Being back in the saddle, meant the cold cleaved beneath my layers, rendering thermals useless and extremities impossible to warm up. To combat this, I wrapped up warmly – little layers, thick fleeces and snoods. For my first lot, the cold merely nibbled, but got worse lot by lot, feeling as if it was taking chunks off me by the end of the morning.

That evening, the first supermoon of the year, the wolf moon, illuminated this snow globe world. My boots crunched through the crispy crust to the sugary layer beneath, whilst the huge shiny ball lit the darkness more silver than the floodlights on the all-weather at Kempton. I didn’t need a torch as the snow reflected the moonlight and my Jack Russell Daisy ran full pelt, crazy for the smells sharpened by the cold. Her tiny pawprints added to the myriads of wild animal tracks and she leapt over sweeping tyre tracks left behind from off-roading jeeps. Grass tufted up through the snow, which glittered as if storing diamonds.

A Mini Geography Lesson

Lying around 305 meters above sea level, Jackdaws Castle is situated pretty high up in the Cotswolds, beaten only by Cleeve Hill or the nearer Fish Hill and Beacon Hill, on top of which Broadway Tower stands tall as a stone soldier. There’s even a lichen-spotted trig-point on the boundary, not far from the main gates. These once mapped Britain, but are now landmarks for hikers and trig-baggers.

Being so high results in Jackdaws Castle seeming to sit in its own microclimate. The weather can be foggy when, less than a mile away, it is clear or it is sunshine here and fog lies grey, damp and swirling beyond the gates. This time, three inches of snow lingered for days but half a mile away, no snow ever fell, and it’s the same with frost, which hits worse than in the valley.

Chasers

I love chasers, especially the older handicappers who love their job. They eat up the ground in big galloping strides and relish the jumps, taking each in flowing arcs of perfection. I feel lucky to look after two chasers in Fortunate Man and Monbeg Genius.

I hadn’t led up an Aintree winner since October 2011 – Nikola in the Veterans’ chase, another gorgeous chaser who jumped regulation fences, the Cheltenham cross-country or Aintree big ones with the same gusto – so I was chuffed when F Man won there on Boxing Day. As is traditional, we sent out runners all over the country, but I took the only runner to Liverpool. The roads were quiet, even the motorways and I couldn’t have had a more lovely day. The fences in the home straight were omitted due to low sun, but F Man still won by three lengths. He is only seven but seems older, having run over extended trips for the past couple of seasons. He’s a tall horse with a handsome head and huge ears. He was feeling his best that day and ran well fresh.

The following day, I went to Chepstow for Monbeg Genius (Minnie) in the Welsh Grand National. Contrary to the usual muddy conditions, the going was good, and Minnie ran well to finish fifth. He did me proud by winning the best-turned-out, which is our first together for a couple of seasons.

My lovely Chasers: Fortunate Man at Aintree (first photo curtesy of John Grossick)

and parading Monbeg Genius before the Welsh Grand National

Odd Jobs

Though part-time, my days at work have been extremely varied. There’s the riding out and the odd day’s racing but then there’s the other tasks that prevent any day from being dull. I have dropped a two-box off at Swindon and did an Aldi shop for the office with Head of Travelling, Alex Howitt, that consisted of a lengthy list, including sixteen tins of baked beans, fourteen bottles of mulled wine, a hundred sausage rolls and four boxes of biscuits. I also took a colleague for an emergency dental appointment.

My yard duties are equally varied; I often change all the horses’ body brushes for clean ones and wash all the scurfy, dirty ones. Or I turnout pairs of horses into their allocated paddocks, finishing my day by hanging up all the washed toweling rubbers and girth sleeves in the drying room. I have also spent evening stables in the barn, doing up horses and skipping out, haying and refreshing water buckets.

And a most fun evening stables was surprisingly spent washing the stable doors. A group of us lugged round soapy buckets of water, scrubbing the grime and scuffs off the black gloss paint. ‘It’s like we’re doing community service,’ giggled Tirana Jakulpi. There was lots of banter, chatting and laughing, proving that any mundane task is fun alongside great colleagues.

Waving farewell to January, we welcome February and hopefully plenty more winners.